Amaleq13

That seems like a very good point.

RUmike

Paul's (admitedly few) references to what appears to be an earthly Jesus are enough for me to conclude that Jesus actually existed. The whole idea of a Pharasaic Jew thinking the messiah would exist only in some spiritual realm (yet somehow still be descended from David) and perform his necessary duties there just seems too far-fetched.

Chris Weimer

I totally agree with this. However, that wasn't the question. The question was about the evidence for a 1st century CE Jesus. In other words, what's stopping Jesus from living 100 BCE and the story around it placed at a later date?

RUmike

Oh, I gotcha. But...

Paul tells us that James was Jesus' brother, but more importantly that he met with James at least once. This places Paul as a contemporary of James and thus essentially Jesus, too. Based on the fact that Paul says James received a post-resurrection appearance, it seems certain that Jesus and James once lived at the same time, although it was possible for James to be quite young at the time. For a somewhat liberal estimate of putting Jesus into the first century: Assuming that Jesus only lived to be 20 years old, was born before James and died ten years after James was born, and James lived to be 60 years old, and was dead by the time Paul wrote Galatians, this still places Jesus' birth around 15 BCE, and death in 5 CE. Granted, this is permitting you accept Galatians to have been written ~55 CE and the reference to James as Jesus' brother to be literal and biological (which I personally do). But again the numbers I chose are arbitrary but purposely liberal to show that it still places him in the 1st century. According to gospel accounts, Jesus was older than 20, and James was probably older than 10 if he became a pillar of the Jerusalem church so quickly (which Paul states he did I'm pretty sure). These adjustments would push his death closer to ~30 CE.

The above argument seems obvious and logical to me. Am I totally missing something here? I find this relatively strong evidence that Jesus lived not so much earlier than Paul (i.e. probably not born any earlier than say 15 BCE and lived into the 1st century).

EDIT: Paul also says he met with Cephas. A similar line of reasoning can thus be used if Paul ever states explicitly that Peter knew Jesus. I'm not aware of any such passage, though.

Asha'man

Hi Jeff,

Some of us lurkers in this thread don't have instant access to such works as Annals 15.25 or ILS 1358-59. For many of us, your asking a series of leading questions, or simply challenging someone's right to make a statement, contains no informational value. I'm sure it would be appreciated if you shared your knowledge in a slightly more direct fashion: by posting your conclusion along with links or excerpts to the evidence you used to reach that conclusion. This makes it far easier for both the experts and the novices to have a meaningful conversation.

Rick Sumner

Certainly you do.

Try this:
http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.html

And this:
http://www.chieftainsys.freeserve.co.uk/tacitus.htm

Or this:
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/...acitus/annals/

Those are on the first page of Google. If you feel you don't have "instant access," it can only be because you haven't bothered to look.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

jgibson000

In the interest of accuracy, I have never in any way (let alone "simply") challenged anyone's right to make a statement. I have, however, raised questions when certain statements were made about whether they are vaild and whether the one making them has any actual evidence to back them up. I hope you appreciate the difference.

But I take your point regarding what would be helpful.

Jeffrey

John Kesler

In addition to the points that RUmike made, I would add that Josephus places John the Baptist in the first century, and the gospels agree that John and Jesus were contemporaries, a fact that I don't think would be fabricated since the NT portrays Jesus' receiving a "baptism of repentance" (Mark 1:4, 9) and attempts to distinguish between the ministries of the two men (Acts 13:23-24; Acts 19:3-5).

Chris Weimer

Where exactly does Paul say that James is the brother of Jesus? All I'm finding is brother of the Lord which may or may not mean actual brother. Paul is figurative with the word "brother" often using it to refer to Christians themselves.

We don't know how old James is. We don't know how old Paul is. We don't know how long the time is from the resurrection of Jesus to the ministry of Paul.

Yes, actually. Jesus went first to James, then to Cephas, then to the 12, then to 500...

Furthermore, the dating of Paul's epistles are usually dated after the supposed resurrection, with the date of the resurrection being contingent on the gospels. Oh how much we rely on these gospels! Say if Paul wrote in the early 30's, at thirty, and met James and Cephas, both 50, that would place Jesus' resurrection at the very beginning of 1st century, and that Jesus liveed mostly in the 1st century BCE. I'm not saying that's correct, but I don't see why it couldn't be a possibility.

Chris Weimer

Yes, but again we're relying on the gospels as our sole source of information. The gospels are late fabrications and are not trustworthy as to what information can be gleaned to be historical. What if Jesus never met John the Baptist, but his followers wanted him to?